


A distant spring

by Lia (Liafic)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 02:59:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1064947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liafic/pseuds/Lia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time in the aftermath of war seems to move differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A distant spring

Time in the aftermath of war seems to move differently. I spend my first few months of peace wandering through the empty halls of my childhood home, with its flowered wallpaper and porcelain sinks, trying to convince myself that it would be all right to pack everything up for storage. There are too many memories here, and they seem to cloud my reactions. Everyone tells me I need to let myself recover from it all, but I feel like I can only sleep in this bed for so long, staring at the dappled shadows of bare branches along my ceiling, before I go insane.

My existence seems to creak at the joints, as though the points where my different lives once connected have started to rust over. Sometimes I look at old photos of my parents, and sometimes I think about going back to school or even applying for university, and sometimes I wander the streets of London late at night. My life seemed to stop after the war, and it was as though I had been broken in two halves, one of which will always lurk like a ghost in the rubble of the school and the echoing marble halls of a manor. In a way, I might carry these events inside me forever. 

The café on the corner near my house is almost empty at this hour, and he is waiting at our usual table by the window. I sometimes feel strange meeting him in the middle of the city like this—anyone could see us, which would force me to think too hard about what this all means. I tell myself our meetings are about closure, but the truth is that somewhere along the way, we went from hatred to mild dislike to something else entirely. Somewhere along the way, our relationship became characterised by fingers brushing accidentally under a table. 

Stress has aged him, etching hard lines into his face and darkening his hair from pale white to blond, and the Christmas lights strung up in the trees along the pavement outside reflect spots of colour in his eyes. 

When we talk about our plans for the holidays, he says, “I suppose I’ll go visit my father.” 

“Oh,” I reply. My hair has curled wildly in the melted snow, and I tuck it clumsily behind my ears. 

“Yeah, well, did you think I had abandoned him?” 

“No, of course not. I don’t know what I thought.” 

He sighs. It feels too strange to imagine him in that prison. While I’m crowded around a table at the Burrow with my friends, he’ll be watching his father crumble behind bars. Does he still love him after everything? I wonder what they talk about or whether they even talk at all. I suppose I have learned a lot about Malfoy over my years of hating him, because I suspect they might just sit there watching one another in silence, listening to the waves beat against the tower. 

“It doesn’t matter either way,” he says after a moment. “A lot has changed since the war.” 

“Yes, I suppose so,” I reply, though peacetime for me has been characterised by an empty home and a lack of purpose. “I sometimes feel like it was all just a dream, you know? I feel like somewhere else, another me is still going to school and laughing and . . . I feel like somewhere along the way, I missed something important.” 

“No, I know what you mean. I guess I spent so long being afraid of everything—well, you were always stronger than that.” 

He glances out the window, and I let his words fade into the silence between us. Our conversations are strange and halting in this way, whenever he says something unexpected. For me, it has always been easier to separate him from the person he was before the war, but these sorts of statements make my denial difficult. In many ways, I still haven’t forgiven him, and I don’t know whether he expects me to or not. He has never asked. 

When he walks me home later, the snow has settled in a thick blanket over the pavement, and the world is quiet and new around us. He seems to stare off into another place as he asks, “Do you remember Christmases before the war?” 

“Yes, I remember,” I reply. Those were carefree times, when I would wrap myself in scarves and the smell of hot chocolate. Harry and Ron would pull me down into the snow and make the most misshapen snow angels I had ever seen. My throat tightens, and the image snaps like a broken bone. I wonder whether he is thinking about happier times with his family, before he made the mistakes he did. 

When we arrive at my doorway, he reaches across the space between us and takes my curled fingers between his, tracing his thumb over my palm. I find myself fascinated by the way his hands seem stronger now—no longer the hands of a boy. When did he grow up and leave me behind, here with my childhood bedroom and my flowered wallpaper? It would be so easy for me to say my goodbyes and wait weeks to see him again, but maybe he is right: maybe things have changed since the war. Maybe I’ve just been looking in all the wrong places. 

“Do you want to come in for a while?” I ask. “I mean . . .” 

He exhales a sort of laugh and drops my hand from his. “Why not?” he says. 

I suppose this is both the beginning and end of our story, the moment when Malfoy stands in my sitting room and looks around at the furniture and framed pictures that formed the backdrop to my childhood. Perhaps this is all I could have asked for from the war. In a way, I guess we have all the time in the world to figure it out.


End file.
